I really don’t know anymore….

[ty_taurus]

When people are using it to form the crux of, or major bolstering to, their arguments, yes.

The reason why other people don't get called out on their use of hyperbole is because those people aren't also complaining about and calling others out on hyperbole. If someone has a bad faith take, most here just call out the bad take. They're not fixated on how that was delivered, but you seem to get fixated on the fact that it is hyperbole regardless of the take. And that's the difference.

Hyperbole is a tool--a literary device that is neither good nor bad. You described cases in which it can be unhealthy, and that's true, but it can be used in other ways as well. I first commented on your use of the term "stratospheric" because that would fall under the category you described of "falsely bolstering" your statement by over exaggerating the stances I and others who feel similarly as I do have taken to make your perspective sound better or to paint ours in a more negative light. Sebazy's comment on your use of "pretty much no one" is more just a bitter jab at the fact that it is hyperbole from someone who complains about hyperbole, but the actual comment on its own is fine. It's either true enough that we understand what you're saying, or it's misinformed.

And that leads me to whatever your argument has been about with Sebazy. Note that I haven't called her out, but I haven't called you out either in regards to the argument you two are having. That's because I'm not paying attention. I'm just responding to your comments directed at me. I'm really not interested in reading through everything in detail to try and play the referee, but I very lightly skimmed over the details. Sounds like you started out talking about the general player perception of SCH/SCH, Sebazy pivoted into a point about the strength of the comp and the advantages it offered for the coils, and you're trying to counter argue some of those points I guess.

On the actual point of the topic, Sebazy knows what she's talking about far more than you or I do when it comes to raiding and what raiding was like then. Not being a raider doesn't mean you don't know anything, but you do not have anywhere near the level of first hand experience on raiding that she has. Maybe, just maybe, she understands the raiding side of it more than you do. And I'm in the same boat for the record. My raiding experience back then was very limited. Sure, from the common player's perspective, SCH/WHM sounds like the right move, and the two naturally did compliment the others weaknesses. It just so happened that SCH was deceptively far better than most of us really understood, especially back then.

It actually reminds me a lot of competitive Pokemon. Because the current format for competitive Pokemon uses Scarlet and Violet, the most recent games. But old formats from past generations are still played competitively today. There's a YouTube channel called False Swipe Gaming that's put out very well researched videos on the competitive history of different Pokemon, and there are times where he discovers Pokemon that have gotten added to a past generation's Meta years after that generation ended because the modern competitive players have found out new strategies that no one thought to deploy back when the generation was current. And I imagine that if each expansion were achieved and playable for FFXIV, we would probably have done the same: learning about new strengths that we didn't realize were there at the time of that expansion. SCH/SCH being discovered as actually stronger or perhaps specifically stronger for certain fights, or whatever the case may be, is something the general playerbase would eventually have discovered rather than just the raiding community.

On the flip side, the whole "thumbing himself" comments are really nasty and uncalled for. I get why Sebazy feels annoyed. She feels that someone who has a fraction of her raiding experience and knowledge is trying to educate her on how raiding actually was, but there's a better way of going about it.

[Aravell]

I look back at silly things like healers and SMN pets tanking primals with great fondness even if they weren't remotely optimal. Now it's all optimise this and spreadsheet that. The enjoyment and mystery has obviously worn away at this stage but I can't help but feel glum that SE had a hand in accelerating the process of causing people to optimise the fun away.

I honestly miss the silly things we could do back then as well. Fights being simpler meant we had a lot more freedom to solving it, like how me and some friends put up a PF to clear Ifrit EX with 8 monks (we cleared it), I had so much fun main tanking with cross-class Skull Sunder and Fists of Earth (I think I died around 40% and someone else took over, those nails exploding really hurt). I also remember when our tank disconnected in expert roulette and I tanked the boss with Titan-Egi and Sustain to keep the little nugget up, was some good times back then.

Sadly, with how rigid they make their fights now and how most jobs no longer have nuance and niche uses, we won't really be seeing funny runs like those anymore.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Le shrug

They make their bed, they can sit in it.

I disagree with plenty of other people on here, probably the clearest case would be Semi over the current state of WHM?

So why don't we put each other on blast? Because we are able to respect each other's opinion and don't feel the need to resort to unproven statistics and unfounded opinions to discredit each other. Case in point:

They why are you even disagreeing with me?

Why indeed? Let's see now:

As for the how: It's that or homogenized morass. WoW figured it out 15-20 years ago. FFXIV figured it out in ARR. (1)I know you like to go on about how super late in the expansion some people figured SCH/SCH could be a gain, but (2)pretty much no one did that or cared to because the difference wasn't great enough (or the demand there) to make it worth doing.

Point 1. If you're going to call me out on something, at least do your homework and call me out correctly.

Point 2. Pretty much no one did, except for uh, the people that did. If you had a WHM that struggled to time a Stoneskin to infirmity, it was actually a pretty big difference. If you're going to say that SCH's lack of healing was a bad trade off, let me remind you just how powerful and resource free rouse>whispering dawn was, now note that double SCH allowed you to maintain whispering dawn for a little over 40 seconds per minute. For free, without having to hassle your bards for Ballad and the associated DPS hit that came with it. Besides, how do you even know that 'pretty much no one' bothered with it? Were you actively raiding coils in 2.0? Did you participate in the raiding scene back then? Or are you just making assumptions because you personally never saw it when you tackled coil?

You need to realise that your jumping to assumptions and building an immovable fortress out of them even when you are clearly and certifiably wrong is a huge part of what causes you to put everyones back up.

I don't come swinging into commentary over the new raids and tell the current generation of spreadsheet enjoyers what's what because it's not something I'm part of anymore and it's not my place to try and speak over their firsthand experience. I'll drop my opinion for sure, but I'll make sure it's clear that it is just that. My opinion. Note how I liberally use IMO, IMHO etcetc? You are aware what they mean right?

[ForsakenRoe]

ARR was more weighted towards complexity in jobs than mechanical complexity, whereas Endwalker is the exact opposite with more mechanical complexity and none/minimal amounts for the jobs themselves. I think both have their good and bad aspects so surely the answer it somewhere in-between ‘all mechanical complexity, little/no job complexity’ or vice-versa, and not in these extremes they keep jumping too

I find that usually it tends to be that Job/class complexity has more lasting effect/staying power than mechanical complexity of content. Basically, if we use the phrase that 'the class is the lens by which we view the game', then having a weak class design (not in terms of strength, but cohesion/rewarding feeling/interactivity/room for player skill growth etc) is like having a lens that is warped, smudged with fingerprints, or coloured with a tint instead of being fully transparent. I can see (play the game, clear the content), but it does not matter what I look at, if it's the Mona Lisa or a literal trashcan, if my glasses are steamed up or smudged with fingerprints and dirt etc, I'm not going to be able to appreciate the thing in front of me. Even if it IS the Mona Lisa (a good raid design). But if I can see clearly, because my glasses are clean, I can at least rule out 'my glasses are scuffed' as the reason the thing in front of me is not appreciated correctly. I'd still say the trashcan (bad raid like P7S) is trashcan, but I can properly appreciate the Mona Lisa with clean glasses

If you're going to say that SCH's lack of healing was a bad trade off, let me remind you just how powerful and resource free rouse>whispering dawn was, now note that double SCH allowed you to maintain whispering dawn for a little over 40 seconds per minute.

Assuming no Soils were used (for the sake of argument, would probably not recommend), you'd also have 6 Lustrates a minute to play around with, right? 25% max HP restore once every 10s on average, on top of Rouse>WD/Embrace, is a lot of throughput. But what would I know, I didn't raid back then (started in 2.5, re-started in 3.2)

[Renathras]

Actually no, that would be impolite.

I'm just not going to engage with this anymore.

[Aravell]

I find that usually it tends to be that Job/class complexity has more lasting effect/staying power than mechanical complexity of content.

Honestly, I think that job complexity should always take priority over fight complexity. If you have easy jobs and complex fights, we run into the problem like P7S, where the fight was a complete flop and so we're stuck with simple jobs and a boring fight for 8 months until the devs get to try again and hopefully give us something fun this time. If you have complex jobs, the fight doesn't actually matter, I had an absolute blast in A9S (the literal definition of a dummy fight) because I had fun jobs back then that I could spend time mastering.

There's also the fact that there are players who joined the game during the HW/SB era and stayed long term because they enjoyed the job design, these players have now been uprooted and continuously pushed away by the dev team and parts of the community both. More complexity placed into fights isn't going to bring them back.

[ForsakenRoe]

we run into the problem like P7S

P7S and P6S are the perfect examples to discredit the 'if they make jobs easier to master, we can have more complex fights' line. Not only does that throw the entire onus of 'challenge the player' on the content difficulty level (leading to situations like this where people who played the game too much are now bored by 95% of the content, since it is no longer a challenge to them), it also requires said difficulty actually be present even IN the difficulty bracket. When people on the reddit/forums say 'we should remove positionals from melee', I have to wonder, have they actually played P7S, or E7S? Those fights sucked bad, and had no positionals. The chances of SE doing a banger fight with no positionals involved seems to be a literal coinflip. Sometimes it's P2S or P10S and it's creative and cool, sometimes it's P12S part 2, E7S, P7S, to an extent E3S (why is it almost always the third fight that is so hit-or-miss). Maybe Viper will have no positionals, just to shut them up

I remember WOW removed a lot of abilities in a big prune, under the same logic of 'if we reduce job complexity, we can have more complexity in the content'. They've readded a lot of old 'fluff' skills to classes in this expansion, because it turns out, they were wrong, and they acknowledged it

[Aravell]

The chances of SE doing a banger fight with no positionals involved seems to be a literal coinflip. Sometimes it's P2S or P10S and it's creative and cool, sometimes it's P12S part 2, E7S, P7S, to an extent E3S (why is it almost always the third fight that is so hit-or-miss). Maybe Viper will have no positionals, just to shut them up

I remember WOW removed a lot of abilities in a big prune, under the same logic of 'if we reduce job complexity, we can have more complexity in the content'. They've readded a lot of old 'fluff' skills to classes in this expansion, because it turns out, they were wrong, and they acknowledged it

I'm not entirely sure how they can give us a fantastic fight like P3S (who's only crime was being too orange) and then give us a flop like P7S the immediate tier after. If they're so inconsistent with fight complexity, what they're trying would never work out. Also, I wouldn't lump E3S in with the likes of E7S and P7S, E3S had some fun moments, it just happened far too late into the fight. Come to think of it, you could also do some funky optimisation stuff in the adds phase of E7S, P7S is the only third floor that's a complete flop in the last 2 expansions.

Honestly, I don't see the dev team acknowledging anything, they're very averse to admitting fault about anything ever since late Stormblood or so, although I'd like to be wrong about this and see that they actually strike up a better balance in the next expansion.